Prince Leopold Island, Beechey Island, and Radstock Bay, Nunavut, Northern Canada

By Glen Bruels
This is part of a series called Northwest Passage et al 2024
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Today was a busy day!  We started at about 6:00 am doing a slow pass by Leopold Island, situated in Lancaster Sound. Most of this island rises steeply from the sea, with cliffs as high as 1000 feet! The cliffs are made of horizontally bedded Silurian limestone and sandstone. Because of the rocks’ softness, it has eroded quite readily which forms huge crevices and rock ledges. This in turn provides nesting sites for a wide variety of nesting seabirds including northern fulmars, black-legged kittiwakes, and black guillemots. While the day started very foggy, with the rising sun, the fog began to melt showing us the cliffs and all the nesting spots. It was hard to take in all the the nesting birds as we have been in somewhat of a “bird drought” for the past 3-4 days due to the lack of proper habitat or food sources. It’s estimated that there are typically over 150,000 nesting pairs of various species during the summer. Because of this, the entire island is a migratory bird sanctuary. We were actually lucky to see this many birds because they are getting ready to migrate for the season.In addition to all the birds flying around, there were quite many in the water. While we couldn’t see it, the top of the island is pretty much a plateau. One thing we did see, however, was a significant increase of ice from what we saw yesterday. In fact, we were awakened by the crunch of the ship going through some of the ice floes.

Working our way of Leopold Island. As with the past 3-4 days, the sun made a valiant effort to shine…
… only to have the clouds descend and fog roll in. It’s cold today; just above freezing.
The 1000 foot vertical cliffs here are truly awesome.
The fracturing of the limestone and sandstone cliffs provides ledges and niches for birds to nest.
The number of nesting pairs is stunning. Every one of the white dots on the photo is a nest!
We saw lots of birds including this Northern Fulmar…
… and these Black-Legged Kittiwakes.
We are starting to see more sea ice, but it seems to be largely concentrated near island shores.
A parting shot of Leopold Island disappearing back into the fog.

This afternoon, we stopped at Beechey Island, which is in the Wellington Channel just off of Devon Island. Like so many other islands in the area, this island was named after someone associated with one of the Northern Passage expeditions. In this case, it was named for the artist William Beechey by his son who was the lieutenant to Captain William Edward Parry, who made the first European landing there. What a nice son — have you ever had an island named after you? This is a very barren island, but we weren’t here for the flora and fauna; we were here to visit the Beechey Island graves — members of the ill-fated Franklin expedition. It turns out that Franklin had chosen the protected harbor of Beechey Island as his winter encampment for the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, with the 129 men onboard in 1845. After the expedition disappeared, it wasn’t for another five years that search teams found the three graves here, along with a series of five other archeological sites on both Beechey and Devon islands. Despite this not being the final resting place of the Terror and Erebus, nor where Franklin or many of the crews’ bodies were later discovered, Beechey has become somewhat of a memorial. Amundsen stopped to pay his respects during his 1903 successful Northwest Passage voyage. It is now a Territorial Historic Site. The grave markers of the three crewmen (Torrington, Braine, and Hartner) are on their third iteration (the first set were destroyed over time by the elements, a second fiberglass set failed quickly, and the current set made of wood with brass plaques seem to be holding up okay). I should mention that the controversy of what caused these men to die is inconclusive. Having been exhumed and autopsied, it was discovered that they all had a level of lead in their tissues (from the solder sealing the tin cans of food) and they all had some level of tuberculosis, but none of these factors were enough to kill them. And while malnourished, they didn’t starve to death. So the mystery continues. In some respects, these three crew members probably had the best of it — they died relatively quickly and didn’t have to suffer the extended suffering of the rest of the crew that died incrementally as they tried to hike hundreds of miles to safety. Cold, starvation and sadly, cannibalism marked the end of there lives.

Visiting the graves on Beechey Island. On the one hand, they are just three of the more than hundred men that perished on this expedition. On the other, it is symbolic of all the lives lost trying to conquer this passage. In that regard, it is a holy place.
Each man’s marker reminds us of the tragedy, but at least they are remembered — unlike so many of the other crewman that lost their lives.
In addition to the graves there are other historically significant remains like the campground. This is where Franklin and his men pitched their tents, using these stones to weigh down the tents. But even after the Franklin expedition tragedy, this area (and these campgrounds) continued to be used. For instance, Amundsen spent a few months here while he was trying to measure the magnetic pole. It’s a bit intimidating to walk on the ground that these explorers walked on.
This was also interesting. This was the “mail cairn.” Do you see those pipe bomb looking things? For years after the tragedy, ships passing here would put mail in those pipes to be forwarded by later sailors who were from the area the letter was being sent to. We saw something very similar in the Galapagos..
This is a memorial cairn to Belot, the French explorer that discovered the strait of his name by dogsled. Having said that, this memorial was installed after this was designated a Historic Territorial Park. There appears to be a lot of hard feeling over this.
This remain has the archeologists stumped. It is a series of depressions that were dug in the ground. The most likely answers are that they were for storage or perhaps a place to hide from the strong winds that blow through here.

Later that evening, we pulled into Radstock Bay, located in the southwest corner of Devon Island where Lancaster Sound splits into a myriad of channels. We were supposed to take Zodiac tours inside the Bay, surrounded by high cliffs on both sides. We heard rumors that both Beluga whales and lots of polar bears had been spotted earlier in the day. For our tour — nothing. I can only conclude that they knocked off at 5 pm…

This entry was posted in Canada, Cruising, Northern Canada, Nunavut, Travel
Glen Bruels

I am a traveler and sometimes clay sculptor, following a long career working in consulting. My work allowed me to travel the world extensively and I was hooked. Today, I travel with my wife/best friend to explore new places, meet new people, and learn new things.

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